POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Montmorency]

Florida Governor Rick Scott's daughter has some thoughts about his COVID diagnosis. [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/blaireerskine/st...44449426468865

@spmetla
Electoral slates are all hardcore partisans, so I'm pretty sure if a Joe Biden slate is certified for each of those states then all the electors will be partisan Democrats. I don't think faithless electors are a factor here, though they would be a sliver of a factor if Republicans overthrew the Biden slates and tried to ram through their own. In that case some, but not enough, Republican electors might manifest a conscience. Also, as a historical matter the EC electors have never had or wielded discretion in a practical way. Recall that the Electoral College in its original form was such an unwieldy contraption that it had to be remade in just a decade. Lessig's arguments have rightly been unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court. To the extent that a state can act unconstitutionally in exercising its authority over electors, it would be in subverting the other constitutionally-enumerated rights of individuals and process, not because electors are wizards. At any rate, even such a paper unconstitutionality is irrelevant to a Republican supermajority, as demonstrated in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) when the Roberts majority acknowledged that gerrymandering imposes injuries to the constitutional rights of citizens and yet declined to do anything to remedy that for raisins. Bottom line: Biden-pledged electoral slates would never want to defect in the first place because they are selected for loyalty, making abstract questions of constitutionality beside the point.


Michigan Republicans reject Trump's entreaty for him a mulligan.

You know, any Republican senators who want to earn major institutional cred and probably the uncritical admiration of the more centrist half of the Democratic Party could just announce, privately or publicly, that unless Republicans unite against Trump they will caucus with Democrats and McConnell will lose his majority and his leadership role. The few milquetoast criticisms we've seen, of the same tenor as have suppurated throughout Trump's term - to no effect - is therefore telling on those who level them without concomitant action. Of course, we knew how this would turn out. Besides impeachment Romney has voted with Trump on pretty much everything. BTW Samurai, this is the kind of lens that might be applied to some of Manchin's record, but in reverse.



On the flipside, I can't shake the feeling that a very loud and persistent alarum from Biden and others about what Republicans have become is needed in both the short and long term, to mobilize the base. Not just mobilize, but prime and educate.

If Donald Trump and Fox News can turn tens of millions of - admittedly psychologically divergent - Americans into raving minions, then arguably an aggressive repudiation of 'disloyal' Republicans by the Dem establishment could help liberals be less complacent.

I applaud your persistent attempts to derail the thread about America.

But if you think that Ukrainian-speakers dominate in Ukraine it shows that you have even less understanding of Ukraine than I do of the USA.



You thought that foreigners should conceive any strategy for YOUR country?

I readily admit the absence not only of knowledge, but skills of state planning and the desire to learn it. It is your compatriots that must come up with one. And preferably those who realize that you can't just neglect the sentiment of nigh on half of the nation.



Even if you succeed in it (which will eventually result in the USSR-type of ONE RULING PARTY, won't it?), it can't cancel the senseless American ritual of whole states "traditionally voting" for a candidate of a particular party even if this candidate is a raccoon or a groundhog.

You think they will leave? Or secede?

You are an intensely and appallingly-obtuse person.

You are the one derailing the thread and I'm bringing it back home. The purpose of the analogy to Ukraine was to throw back your logic in your face. Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians are not obligated to allow foreign-backed seditionists to dominate them on some bad faith theory of equity that misrepresents the nature of the conflict. In Ukraine's case you cannot neglect their sentiment (and operationalization of it) inasmuch as it presents a looming threat to your way of life, but you naturally will oppose and resist it. And you would be right to do so.

The hell of the thing is that the analogy is by design overly generous to you since Republicans hold much more power in America than Russian-speaking Ukrainians do in Ukraine, and a Russian-hostile Ukrainian government poses more of a hindrance to the interests of Russian-speaking Ukrainians than Democratic-led governments do to the interests of Republicans (though in both cases we would expect an erosion of cultural influence, which is probably the sticking point in these types of conflicts).

You think they will leave? Or secede?

Russian-speaking Ukrainians have prioritized the exit option, because they are a minority (in terms of those clearly more loyal to a Russian identity than a Ukrainian one) and geographically-concentrated. American political demographics are not as stable as linguistic ones are, but Republicans are not less than 40% of the population and are well-dispersed throughout the country. The option I am very obviously (obvious enough to be derogatory toward your competence at parsing and reflecting on information that you would overlook it) alluding to is the one where they impose an apartheid regime against us, subjugating us or forcing us out of the country. In the contemporary operation of such schemes it is rarely necessary to kill more than a few thousand of the target groups.

A one-party Democratic state for a generation is a clearly-preferable outcome for those who prioritize stability, human rights, the resolution of collective problems and challenges to the common weal, and not promoting the rise of mafia-like autocracies around the world. Most other democracies have functioned as one-party states for extended periods anyway.